For many horror fans October is like Christmas come early, a chance to celebrate the macabre and scary. Many also have their favourite films that they watch every year without fail, and this year they have a new one: Tales of Halloween.

Even before watching Tales of Halloween, all you need to do is to look at the cast, directors and writers to see that this is special. Bringing together some of the more renown names of the genre, in one film, makes this movie something we’ve not seen in the genre in a while… an event movie!

So who worked on it? Here we go… Adam Gierasch, Andrew Kasch, Axelle Carolyn, Darren Lynn Bousman, Dave Parker, John Skipp, Lucky Mckee, Mike Mendez, Neil Marshall, Paul Solet, and Ryan Schifrin. Actors in the film also include Greg Grunberg, Lin Shayne, Sam Witwer, Barbara Crampton, Pollyanna McIntosh, Clare Kramer, and John Landis in a cameo (and that’s not the full list). Now you’ve processed those names, back to the film itself.

Tales of Halloweenis made up of ten stories. Instead of just being a collection of gory tales with no meaning, all have that old school feel of being cautionary tales of Halloween. They go back to what scary stories used to be, using the night as a theme and using that as inspiration to not only celebrate Halloween, but also the horror genre itself.

In the stories we have tales of revenge, trick or treat consequences and even aliens. My favourite story may be in fact the one where a cute little alien comes to earth to celebrate Trick or Treat and comes face to face with a Jason Voorhees like character. Let’s just say that you don’t mess with an alien who has travelled light years to enjoy Halloween. Other stories I enjoyed was a kidnap tale with deadly consequences, a tale of why you don’t want to break down on Halloween, and a trick or treater finding themselves truly tricked by the owner of a house he attempted to egg.

What I particularly enjoyed about Tales of Halloween though is that it has an old school feel to it, much like Trick ‘r’ Treat tried to create. This isn’t a film that panders to what Hollywood expect horror to be (a quick money-maker) but a celebration of the genre and the season – these tales are created with a love of the genre and just as importantly a love of Halloween itself and that is why it works so well. I’m not sure of any other genre could create a movie like this, and that shows just how special horror truly is.

I have certain movies that I watch every Halloween without fail, and from now on Tales of Halloween is going to be on that list. These ten stories are so varied, and knowing of what Halloween horror should be, that they make this film work. If you ever wanted to see a film that truly gets the horror genre, then this is one of them.

Maybe it is that I am a big horror fan, and a fan of some of the directors who worked on this movie that made me like it so much, or the fact that it truly is a Halloween movie. Whatever the reason is, the real fact is that we need more horror films like Tales of Halloween. Fun, entertaining and created by people who love the genre, this is a film that proves that there is much more life in horror that some would think.